Time to Get Serious with God — E.A. Johnston

Joel's Judgment Through Devouring Locusts

The book of Joel speaks of the terrible financial collapse of Judah as a result from devouring locusts that the people could not fight nor control. We see a picture of this in Joel chapter 1 and in verses 10 through 12.

The field is wasted, the land mourneth, for the corn is wasted, the new wine is dried up, the oil languisheth. Be ye shamed, O ye husbandmen, how, O ye vinedressers, for the weed and the barley, because the harvest of the field is perished.

The vine is dried up, and the fig tree languisheth, the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree. Even all the trees of the field are withered, because joy is withered away from the sons of men.

In Joel chapter 1 we see Judah as a scene of a vast wasteland, devoured and destroyed, withered, wasted, perished, and dried up. All is in a languishing state from a terrible judgment from the hand of God, for the people had forgotten God.

The Historical Locust Plague and a Warning to America

It's hard to imagine such swift and ultimate ruin upon a people by natural calamity like an invading army of devouring locusts that chew and destroy everything green in their consuming path. But in 1915 this very thing happened in Palestine as desert locusts destroyed Palestine, almost as a reminder of the reality that devastated Judah in the time of the prophet Joel, when the youthful boy Joash was king and still under the guardianship of the high priest Jehoiada.

One day it's sunny, and the people are enjoying the fruits of their labor. Then quite suddenly they look to the horizon and hear a buzzing sound and see a darkening sky, but no storm clouds can be discerned.

Rather, the sun is blocked out by the thousands of thousands of swarming locusts that quickly and loudly descend in swift destruction. The people are in shock and in dismay as they evaluate their ruined crops and see their livelihoods destroyed.

The very strength of their knees goes out from under them. In America, we've been under sunny skies of sudden prosperity and financial markets at all-time highs. But we can't see the darkening sky that is fast approaching upon us, for it all will soon collapse as an unsustainable bull market bubble pops and drops with precipitous speed.

As trees don't grow to the sky, so too will a nation be brought low for forgetting the God of the Bible. The prophet Joel informs the beleaguered people of God what to do in the midst of all this sudden calamity upon them.

Fasting and Solemn Assembly as the Proper Response

Look at verses 13 and 14. Gird yourselves and lament, ye priests, how! Ye ministers of the altar, come lie all night in sackcloth. Ye ministers of my God, for the meat offering and the drink offering is withholding from the house of your God.

Sanctify ye a fast, call a solemn assembly. Gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land into the house of the Lord your God and cry unto the Lord. Joel tells them God is their only hope. An offended God is the reason behind their dire situation, for they had forsaken him as they enjoyed the fruits of their prosperity.

They lived unto themselves rather than live unto God. For their bellies had become their God and their estates their security. But God wipes it all away like you'd take a dish towel to wipe a dirty plate clean.

The Call to Wholehearted Surrender

Well, that's the introduction to my message today, friends. The title of my message is, Time to Get Serious with God. My text can be found in the book of Joel. You may turn in your Bibles there now, friends.

The heart of my message is found in chapter 2 and in verses 12 through 17, which is a passage of Scripture which speaks of the Lord's mercy. It also speaks to us today, friends, as a call to a time of solemn assembly and for a time for the people of God to get serious with God.

I believe the coming financial collapse will rival that of the Great Depression and rudely awake a nation that has completely forsaken God. A nation cannot continue to sin and shake its fist in the face of a holy God without suffering the consequences of a violated God.

I want to read us our passage today, friends, and I do so with a heavy heart as I see a church that is quite unwilling to do what is necessary and laid out in our passage today. I've known folks from time to time who tell me they want to go all out for God and be used of Him, but why, I don't know.

They never do it. I hear from them again, and it's always the same. They say they want to get serious with God, but something keeps holding them back. The world has yet to hear from them. They have their list of excuses.

But Almighty God doesn't want a half-hearted servitude or partial surrender. I don't believe it even crosses His heavenly radar screen. He only takes notice of those who actually do what they say they will do and give Him an utter and complete surrender, holding nothing back.

Jesus Christ held nothing back when He willingly went to the cross for sinful man. His blood was poured out like a drink offering to the Father who held nothing back to the world when He gave His only begotten Son.

But somehow, in our minds, we foolishly believe that God will accept a blemished offering, that He will take the little of ourselves we choose to give Him, and He will look over the rest that we selfishly keep back from Him.

But no, friends, God is not like that at all. You're either all out for Him, or you're not. He is not blind. He sees your heart as it contradicts your lips, like Elijah challenged the people gathered at Carmel when he said, How long, halt ye between two opinions?

If the Lord be God, follow Him. In our passage here today from Joel, the prophet speaks the heart of God to a rebellious people and tells them exactly what they need to do to appease an offended God. This is seen in verses 12 through 17, which I will now read to us at this time.

Repentance Through Fasting, Weeping, and Mourning

Hear now is the word of God, and may the Spirit of the Lord be pleased to attend the reading of His holy word. Therefore also now saith the Lord, Turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning.

Let me pause here, friends. Notice the plain instructions from God for the people of God to get serious with Him. He says to turn to Him with all the heart, holding nothing back, nor allowing anything to stand between Him and you.

He says with fasting. If you're going to get serious with God, friend, then you better seek Him with a fast. I just came off a 21-day fast, and it was a partial fast, but it was a time that I was desperate for God, and I felt my dire situation demanded a fast on my part as I humbled myself before Him in a time of earnestly seeking Him.

Next God says, and with weeping, or your eyes dry when you pray. Then He says with mourning. Are you mourning over your sins? Are you mourning over your unbelief? And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God, for He is gracious, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil, who knoweth if he will return and repent, and leave a blessing behind him, even a meat offering and a drink offering, unto the Lord your God.

The Church's Spiritual Decline and the Call to Awaken

I will pause here, friends, to say only that God gets serious with those who get serious with Him, and God only gets serious with those who actually get serious with Him. The next three verses speak of what the church and orday, what the leaders of the people of God and orday, refuse to do.

Why? It astounds me that we can be in such a tragic time in our nation's history, where people are rejoicing in the rise in stock markets, and totally ignore the spiritual judgment that is upon the land, that churches can be so far removed from the heart of Almighty God as to be so blind to their own spiritual declension, and unwilling to repent of their flagrant pride, and humble themselves before God, and turn from their wicked ways, and weep over the whole sad condition of the church and the land, blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children, and those that suck the breasts, let the bridegroom go forth of his chamber, and the bride out of her closet, let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, spare thy people, O Lord, and give not thine heritage to reproach, that the heathen should rule over them.

Wherefore they say among the people, Where is their God? I will stop there, friends. America, though financially prosperous, is spiritually bankrupt. The church, though grown in membership by leaps and bounds, is without authority.

The jeering society looks at the church and says, Where is their God? And the church is silent and powerless. She is prayerless and has compromised herself with the world in her effort to reach it. Her sanctuaries are a spiritual wasteland, dried up, withered.

The withdrawn presence of God is not even noticed in our spiritual barrenness. Where will it all land as we live in a day, a final apostasy? Will the church take him at his word at this desperate hour as we near the end time and call a solemn assembly?

Where the leaders lay on their faces in their sanctuaries all night in desperation as they weep between the altar of God and heaven and cry out to God on behalf of the people here, crying out to him as they cast themselves on the mercy of God?

Wholehearted Devotion Before It Is Too Late

It's time to get serious with God and not give him lip service anymore, but give my whole heart in an utter surrender to him. God gets serious with those who get serious with him. The hour's too late for anything else.

If the Lord be God, then follow him. Let us pray.